Kyushiki Naruto
by NamelessEpitaph
Summary: Once upon a time there was a sennin who fought pirates as a member of the elite assassination unit, CP9. Unfortunately he wrote a book about it. Not to be taken seriously or orally.
1. Soru

Kyushiki Naruto

By ______

Chapter One: Soru!

Disclaimer: All things that appear below are the property of their legal owners. Having noted this, it applies to both those things published respectably and those things directly stolen off of other fanfictions and fanfiction authors. Thank you. (By to by, it's flattery, not theft.)

Author's Note: For those of you who don't know, Kumadori is from One Piece, as is the Rokushiki, which is extended into the Kyushiki to better fit the ninja world. Also, a lot of this is about irony and wordplay, more so than... well, plot I guess.

#An Extremely Brief Prologue#

There once was a very large fox, which happened to have nine long, somewhat dangerous tails. This fox was exploring the woods one day when suddenly, and for no apparent reason a very large swarm of tiny, tiny humans attacked it. Naturally, the fox of unusual size killed them all before continuing on its way. More humans appeared, again and again, with the apparent intent of pissing off the fox.

Then a very large toad appeared. Now, everyone knows that foxes eat toads, so what happened next, which involved biting and lots of jumping, shouldn't have come as a surprise to anyone. No, what should have been surprising was that the toad not only survived, but also that one of the tiny, tiny humans defeated the rather large fox.

And so, everyone in the hidden village, which had in fact been completely concealed from the giant fox, who had simply been wandering around, resolved to torment the baby that had played an as of yet unmentioned but vital role in saving their ungrateful asses. This led to the boy having to scavenge through trash at a young age in order to survive. And it just so happens that in the trash one day, there was an interesting book, entitled "The Tales Of Kumadori The Lion".

So the much despised child took the book home and struggled to read it every so often, never quite realizing that Kumadori wasn't actually a lion, but a sennin or that none of the skills listed in it had ever actually been designed to work in the real world. In fact, despite the fantasy qualities it had, the book eventually became the main source of technique knowledge for the child, as nobody really bothered to pay enough attention to teach him anything, let alone tell him that what he was trying to do shouldn't work.

Had they noticed in time, our story would never have happened.

#End Prologue#

Chapter 1: Soru

A blond boy, who incidentally happened to be the child from the prologue, yawned. This prompted an annoyed grunt from a raven haired boy nearby and a beratement by a pink haired girl.

The children, Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno respectively, had been sitting around a red and white bridge awaiting their new sensei, one Kakashi Hatake. They had been there for almost four hours, and it was almost nine now. Yes, nine in the morning, cause it wouldn't make much sense for ninja classes to run at night when sneaking around would be so much easier, but then again these ninja wear identifying headbands that shouted to everyone that see them: "I come from this village and am a viable threat", so they are perhaps not the best ninja to expect ninja-like behavior from. Anyways, for those who don't know much math, this means they had been up since five. Yes, AM. Yes, that is quite early.

Not only that, due to the instructions of their somewhat dubious instructor, none of them had bothered to eat breakfast, so they were all grouchy too. And then there was the fact that to some degree they all hated one of the others at this point and loved the one who happened to hate them. Hopefully what this means is fully understood from just that implication and doesn't need to be stated explicitly. And for those of you new to the genre, Naruto has a crush on Sakura. ...A moment should perhaps also be taken to explain that Sasuke's examples of love included a father who ignored him for being weak, a mother who was absent on missions more often than not and a brother that murdered every other member of his family, extended or close, before burning the memory into his little brother's head repeatedly as a parting gift... so his view of how to get and express affection was somewhat... skewed.

But as this is once again getting off track and also somewhat creepy to speculate about as it makes disturbing sense in favor of those crappy yoai authors being canon-ish, especially when one considers how Naruto might view affection after the way he was raised before adding in his odd affection for Sakura, who hits him regularly, and that breaking an arm is Itachi's way of saying "nice to see you again brother", Kakashi appeared in a poof of smoke and leaves.

He produced two bells, two bentos and a long winded explanation that amounted to jack as he was, number one: lying, number two: never going to back up the lesson with repetition if they got through it the first time anyways and number three: ordered by the council to let them pass. The gist of it was simple, get a bell by noon or go back to the academy. There was a slight problem, however. He, a jounin, would be defending the bells. For a lot of ninja this would be a problem, for brand-new, not even genin yet? Well, it should be pretty easy to see where this is going.

But enough with this digressive chapter introduction.

Kakashi was relaxed. While the genin were in a do or die moment, this was his idea of just another day at the office. He watched two of the potential genin scamper off for cover and manage to conceal themselves pretty well, for genin. The third one though, just stood there, looking like he was struggling to think. The strange, business suit-like outfit that appeared to have been made from an orange jumpsuit, combined with the enormous mane of blonde hair and downright bizarre white and red face paint made him look like two thing, an idiot and Jiraiya. Okay, maybe that was one thing.

But then again, Jiraiya was a very dangerous idiot, so Kakashi didn't lower his guard completely.

"Um, sensei, how are we suppose to do that?"

That is, until the idiot spoke. Kakashi sighed as he leaned back against a tree and pulled out a copy of Icha Icha Soldier to pass the time. "Just try your hardest, I'm sure you'll do fine." The jounin lied.

"Uh, okay. Soru." The idiot spoke again, disappearing from one end of the clearing and reappearing on the opposite side of the unsuspecting jounin.

Kakashi was many things, most of which could be used to insult others if talking to reasonable people or most women, but he was also a good ninja. As a good ninja, a certain part of his mind was always running on a paranoid, 'don't ever let anything get behind you' instinct while he was conscious. This allowed him to whirl and perform an open palm strike in less than a single second. An open palm strike aimed at the level of another adult's head or throat, well above most of Naruto's hair. Most of it.

This also caused his mind to fault, taking a split second to realize what just happened and another split second to attach that speed to something similar. Then about four or five instances were spent freaking out over someone else using the Hiraishin and another twelve moments on panicking over how the pariah could have learned that ability. Within that time, a bell was taken, a flurry of weapons were hurled and a pink haired girl blinked in confusion. Then time resumed.

Poof. Went Kakashi in a puff of smoke as various shurikens and kunai impaled his body, which turned into a log.

"Damn." Muttered Sasuke as he tried to flee.

"Yo-yo-yo." Laughed Naruto, pocketing the bell.

"Baka." Murmured Sakura, forgetting what she just saw.

Kakashi considered his options. The Hiraishin being used by anyone needed to be reported to the Hokage immediately, but if he acted like anything was wrong it would draw attention to his students and someone else might find out Naruto was able to do that. Besides he was in the middle of a test. "Alright Naruto, you got a bell, so take a seat and we'll see if you're going to have any teammates or not." This was not going according to plan. The first clue should probably have been when Naruto included reindeer demons and rubber men as some of his dislikes. Pirates were to be expected in a list of dislikes from any self-respecting ninja, though it was odd for a mere genin to bring up that old rivalry. Oh well.

A quick shunshin and he was leaning casually against a tree as Sasuke ran towards it. "Going somewhere?" He could practically hear the Uchiha's thoughts as the genin's stance shifted around. Noting the prodigy had finalized on direct confrontation, he flipped a page as a cue.

The young shinobi leapt forward, throwing a small brace of kunai ahead of him to try and force the jounin to dodge in a certain direction.

Why not?

Kakashi sidestepped out of the way and into the path of his charging would-be apprentice. With a casual air he blocked and parried a series of attacks with a narrow metal plate on the back of one glove, while still apparently reading and flipping pages. Finally the boy got frustrated and launched a massive fireball, catching the jounin off guard and managing to brush his fingers against the one remaining bell briefly. Right before the jounin countered and blasted him away with a single punch.

"Very good. Just what I'd expect from the rookie of the year. I'm surprised you could manage to pull off a grand fireball at your age." Kakashi shamelessly pandered to the last Uchiha. "But you should know that I'm a jounin for a reason."

Sasuke righted himself and stood defiant. "If the dobe could get a bell, then there's no way I'm going to lose." He charged again, with less forethought this time. The jounin dodged around before sinking the genin into the ground, up to his neck.

"Naruto is... special. His life has been very rough from a young age, it's expected for him to have a certain... power. Think of it as a kekkei genkai." The jounin tried to placate what was sure to be his prized student.

Said student glared back. "The dobe doesn't have a clan, how can he have a kekkei genkai?"

Kakashi paused before thinking of a way to explain it that would satisfy the boy's demands without saying too much. "We believe Naruto's family was completely destroyed when the Kyuubi attacked. No one really knows who his mother or father was, other than the fact that after he was born there was no one to claim him. For all we know, Naruto might be the last of his bloodline. His family might not even have been from Konoha, but simply gotten stuck when the Kyuubi appeared. Given that, he could be part of almost any clan in the Elemental countries or even part of a lost bloodline believed to be destroyed."

There, entirely truthful from his limited knowledge of the boy, yet also evasive enough to explain any unusual skills away as a kekkei genkai instead of as a result of the fox. Besides, if the boy's lineage was of any concern, the Hokage would have told him before putting the jinchuriki on his team. Come to think of it, Naruto was probably put here because the Hokage mistakenly believed Kakashi felt somehow responsible for what his sensei had been forced to do to the boy and would try to make it up to him. Hmph, sensei's debt was sensei's debt, much as he owed the man, his own debt to Obito would have to come first.

Nodding, he wandered off to find and torment the last genin on his team. He had to pass them obviously, the council wouldn't allow the last Uchiha to fail. Hey, maybe that was why the Kyuubi kid was on his team, with anyone else they'd fail the whole team to shoot him down. Yeah, that made sense.

One quick lesson in genjutsu later, he wondered if the kunoichi was placed on this team for a similar reason, there was no way she could become a genin otherwise.

And so it was that he came to pass out the bentos to Naruto and Sasuke, leaving the pink haired girl tied to a log. He had wanted to tie up the Kyuubi kid a little, but felt he should at least keep this part of his word about the bells until he could find an excuse to pass them all with. Hmm... "I'm going to get some lunch, you are not to feed Sakura while I'm gone. If you do, you all fail"

There. Now all he had to do was wait in a tree for them to give some of their food to the girl. Naruto was considering it. He kind of presented it to her... Sasuke starts trying to talk him out of it. It looks like they were about to start a fight. Sakura says something, Naruto looks crestfallen. Then he laughs and scratches the back of his head before he starts eating again.

Figures he'd be the only one willing to disobey a direct order. Getting these three to work together was going to be harder than expected, a little over half the teams he'd rejected could have passed on that technicality, if he had wanted them to.

What to do, what to do?

This was far more difficult than he had thought it'd be, shouldn't the Uchiha heir be a shining example of Konoha's teamwork? And shouldn't the Kyuubi child be the epitome of cold and unfeeling towards others? The pink hair girl was at least the abysmal fangirl he had expected. Maybe that's what he needed to use.

No, this was probably as close to teamwork as they were going to actually get. Best to wrap it up and call it a day. He poofed back in front of them, a look of sheer rage in his eyes.

"You all... you all... Pass." Ah, the look on their faces. He was actually going to enjoy this job.

"But, Kakashi-sensei, what about the bells?" The pinkette just had to be difficult, didn't she.

"This was all an exercise to see if you had the teamwork and concern necessary to work together. Teams are assigned in groups of three, you work as a group, you train as a group and you live as a group. If you could pass the qualifying test you have the skills necessary to become a genin, from there you have to have the ability to become part of a team. 'Those who break the rules are trash but those who abandon there friends are worse than trash.'" There, now everything was taken care of and he could blow off a few hours before reporting that his team passed.

"Sensei, I don't-" Honestly, wasn't this girl suppose to be a genius? The other two accepted this at face value, so why wouldn't she?

"Meet me tomorrow at nine for our first mission." Kakashi declared, popping off with another shunshin.

Sasuke smirked to himself and turned away, Naruto looked thoughtful and pulled the bell out of his pocket as he left and Sakura...

"Hey, Sasuke-kun..." Whined at the raven-haired boy's retreating back. "Wait, Sasuke-kun don't go! Please, cut me down first!"

"Don't worry Sakura-chan. I'll help you." The blonde told her, turning back around.

The pinkette sighed, it might not be her Sasuke-kun, but at least she wouldn't be tied to a log. "Alright, but be careful, I don't want any rope burns or..."

"No problem, Sakura-chan! Rankyaku!"

One of the blonde's legs lashed out in a blur that a jounin would be hard pressed to follow, creating a visible bluish ripple in the air that flew at the pinkette at an incredible speed. The pink haired girl froze, terrified beyond her capacity to comprehend. The distortion narrowly passed her right arm, cleanly slicing the rope, log and a distant tree trunk in two. Actually the rope was in more than two pieces if you think about it. In fact, so was the log, since it had once been part of a larger log that got cut into sections. The tree though, it had been in one piece before, so it actually was just two pieces now.

Inner-Sakura sighed as she realized Outer-Sakura had locked herself in again, leaving their body defenseless and vulnerable. Fortunately, Naruto-kun was there to protect them. She gave a second, contented sigh at that thought before she forced herself to deal with Outer-Sakura again.

"One of these days I'm going to figure out how to take control and we're jumping him." She muttered to herself, making the sobbing ball of red clothes and pink hair squirm and cry harder. "Alright, come on. Hand it over."

"But why? Why is-" Outer-Sakura uncurled slightly, facing her inner self. She was silenced as her inner self slipped one hand into her chest and started feeling around.

Inner-Sakura sighed again. "Because you decided on Sasuke and decided you wouldn't lose to Ino, no matter what. Because you refuse to work through it on your own and always end up here. Because I can't just take over the body and go after the one that really makes us happy. Because Naruto-kun really is everything you wanted to believe Sasuke was. Because survival and happiness aren't the same thing and my survival hinges on you and you refuse to face reality whenever something your views disagree with pops up. Now shut up and let me work."

Her forearm drifted around and across Outer-Sakura's body for a few minutes before drawing out half a dozen clear sphere with images playing inside them. "Let's see... The bastard wouldn't share with us, lost to sensei and just walked off when everything was over, leaving us tied up. Yeah, I can see why these were bothering you. And Naruto-kun's. Hmm... Cha! He got a bell! I knew he could do it! Ah, and he offered us his bento... Wow! What was that? That... that..." Inner-Sakura composed herself and wiped the blood off her upper lip. "And no doubt you were frightened by it. Hmph, he'd never hurt us and you know it." Inner-Sakura pressed the spheres against her own chest, letting them sink in through her skin. "Ah, almost like I was the one out there now."

She giggled slightly as she rounded on her outer self. Outer-Sakura looked somewhat better now, though she was still a little shaky. "Can't you suppress them more? They're still there and-"

Inner-Sakura shook her head. "There are too many for that. You need to either get through to your precious Sasuke soon or..."

Outer-Sakura snorted. "Or scrap up the bottom of the barrel."

Inner-Sakura thrust one hand at her, a collection of clear spheres flowing out of her palm. "You want your memories of Sasuke and Ino back?" Outer-Sakura blanched and backpedaled away. "I thought not. You should at least admit defeat with Sasuke before some harpy recognizes Naruto-kun's potential and snatches him up for herself."

"That'd never hap-"

"Hinata."

"But she wouldn't-"

"We were lucky there. If she had been a proper, spoiled Hyuga princess she had already made him her own. As it is I think the bitch was peeking on him during class and we know she's stalking him at odd times. But if we've realized it and she's realized it, it's only a matter of time until a more proactive girl realizes and if we don't have him by then, he's as good as hers."

"We?"

Inner-Sakura gave Outer-Sakura a flat look. "I have yet to be able to take over our body. Therefore, at the least, I have to share him with you. Though kami knows that with how much training you do we'll never have the stamina to keep up."

Outer-Sakura glared back, her cheeks pink from the implied message. "No, 'we' are going after Sasuke-kun."

"For now." Inner-Sakura muttered back darkly as her outer aspect faded from the empty green field that represented their mind.

Sakura found herself laying down with her head resting on something vaguely soft. She took a few moments to register in all of her other senses before opening her eyes. Thankfully, Naruto wasn't leaning over her with a worried look on his face, as she had expected. She sat up.

"Oh, Sakura-chan! You should have said something if you were so hungry you were gonna faint. Here you go."

Sakura turned to find Naruto, sans his orange suit-jacket, offering her what was left of a bento with a cup of steaming instant ramen. Somewhat grateful for the idiot's thoughtfulness, she accepted both. "Thanks Naruto."

"Yeah. Sorry about your dress." The idiot replied absently as he picked up his jacket and unfolded from where she'd been using it as a pillow.

Sakura froze. "My dress?"

"Yeah, I guess I was a little too close huh? B,but I'm sure it's not a big deal to fix, yo-yo-yo." He laughed awkwardly, one hand behind his head.

Sakura turned to look at her right sleeve. There was a rather narrow vertical slit that allowed her arm to show all the way up to her shoulder. She growled. "Na-ru-to! This was my favorite outfit!"

Bam.

"Team 7 passes." Kakashi said plainly as he walked casually into the Hokage's office, a copy of Icha Icha Muyo in hand. "However, I think there's something you need to know about Naruto's skills..."

The Sandaime sighed. There were times he wished he was the one who had been smart enough to seal the Kyuubi and escape all this damn paperwork. "And that would be?" Kakashi eyed the window cautiously, making the elder ninja sigh again. With a few hand-signs he created a privacy barrier. "You may speak freely Kakashi."

"He used something greatly resembling the Hiraishin. At first I thought it was the actual jutsu until I noticed that he didn't use a seal to target me. It's obvious the Kyuubi has influenced..." The jounin trailed off as the Hokage laughed quietly.

"You have his file don't you, Kakashi? All his known and projected skills are listed there."

"Hokage-sama, I fail to see how his skills can be projected when I've never trained a genin team before. Also, there was almost nothing listed under current skills except for a few basic academy skills and some nonsense abilities I've never heard of before. For instance, what exactly is a sexy jutsu?"

Sarutobi coughed into his hand nervously at the memory of that particularly dangerous ability. "Never mind that jutsu, I have told him expressly that it's forbidden and is not to be used under any circumstances what-so-ever. As for the rest..." The elder opened a drawer in his desk and extracted a weather-beaten book that he quickly handed to Kakashi. "He is self-taught, using this as a guide."

"'The Tales Of Kumadori The Lion'?"

"It was written by a civilian during the second great age of piracy. The sennin it chronicles is ridiculous, the training methods listed are ludicrous and many of the characters have fanciful kekkei genkai, but otherwise it is an entertaining story about duties, dreams and regrets. Naruto's copy is much more heavily damaged and some of the pages are completely illegible. Yet..." The Hokage lit his pipe and puffed a few times, trying to relax. "Yet he has already mastered four of the skills listed, despite the book never once mentioning chakra, hand-signs or any real jutsu. The most realistic ability in the book is the power to walk on any surface, which is recommended to be learned after mastering how to 'kick off of air'. And as we both know how much chakra control it takes to 'air-walk' for even an instant... Check the index for Soru."

Shrugging, the shinobi did just that, flipping through the book to the end. "'Soru: a technique in which the user moves at incredibly high speeds in brief bursts to avoid attacks and to attack enemies. The main principle behind Soru is being able to kick off from the ground a minimum of ten times in the blink of an eye. The most fundamental of all Kyushiki, it can be trained by throwing a kunai at a target at least twenty feet away and then outrunning it to catch or deflect it before it hits the target.' ...With all due respect, Hokage-sama, I doubt any ninja is capable of that."

Sarutobi puffed on his pipe a few more times before answering. "No ninja should be, certainly. But the teachers at the academy were not the kindest to Naruto and never bothered to teach him anything. By the time I found out he was relying on this as a training guide, he had already learned the basics of two of the skills listed in it. At present he has mastered four and knows imperfect versions of the other two. Seeing as no one was willing to teach him, I felt it best to let him continue if only for his own protection. To my shame, I didn't bother to learn what the style entailed until later on and now I fear I may have allowed him to forge himself into a far worse weapon than Danzo ever could."

Kakashi flipped through a few more pages of the slightly damaged tome. "If I may, Hokage-sama?"

"Of course. He is going to be your student after all. Just keep in mind that they seem to work at least slightly differently than actually listed." The old man sighed yet again as the jounin vanished in a whirl of leaves, disrupting a few loose papers from their stacks.

Time passed despairingly slowly for the newly instated team 7. Outside of a few tasks, such as capturing abused cats and getting groceries, there weren't many places ninja skills could be used on a D-ranked mission. And anything above the most basic of basic skills was never needed, period. Topping this, Kakashi had then told them to limit themselves from even those and slacked his way out of training them.

As Sakura was still a love-struck, useless fangirl at this point, Inner-Sakura screaming out obscenities at her to train herself before she's left behind notwithstanding, and Naruto had an ancient, decrepit tome to follow the instructions of, become less legible with each new day, only Sasuke languished in this instance, having already mastered his clan's archive. Or at least what was left of his clan's archive.

Okay fine, he mastered the beginner's scroll to impress his classmates with his superiority and then accidentally left the rest of the archive out in the open to review only for it to rain later that day. It was his best kept secret, which was actually not the sort of thing that needed or even should be kept a secret. Had he asked, there were copies that could easily be made from the Hokage's tower as it had a record of every technique in the village hidden away.

But that would be admitting he made a mistake.

Pride sucked.

Besides, learning solely from text was hard and involved a lot of inferences and critical thinking, repeating the same exercises over and over again in mind-numbing tedium actually gave him a way to feel useful and stronger while he brooded, learning something new would interfere with that. It wasn't like he knew where his brother was and since he was easily the most powerful from his graduating class, why bother doing anything but resting on his laurels? He'd earned it. There wasn't a stronger genin in all the world, except maybe Naruto.

Dobe, definitely, idiot, absolutely, but he was still strong. There wasn't much proof, since they couldn't use their skills often, but he could feel it. Sense it. Taste it. The soft, gentle and alluring call of power, the feel of it radiated from his blond rival. Not only that, he was growing stronger at a rate that surpassed Sasuke's, rather paltry, own and that couldn't be allowed. So...

"I need a harder mission." The last Uchiha announced without preamble. "Give us a C-rank."

"Oh, and just why is that, Sasuke?" The Sandaime in the warm, congeal tone he often used in diplomatic meetings before having the other diplomats quietly assassinated by ANBU in disguise as foreign ninja. Of course, the genin didn't know or realize that the warm and friendly tone was solely to veil malice.

But surely the Hokage was above petty anger at a child for costing him one of his most valuable, capable, powerful and loyal shinobi in exchange for his pathetic, arrogant brother's life, right? Then again, being made a ninja in any capacity had promptly made the boy an adult, hadn't it? To think he'd let his would-be successor become a missing-nin for this... Still, the least he could do was make sure the younger brother was far too weak to kill the older and maybe someday, with Sasuke having died on a mission, Itachi could return to the village.

Team 7 represented one giant gamble on his part, Sasuke with Naruto to keep the squad from inner-village betrayals. Sasuke with Kakashi to keep him untrained, as Naruto fortunately had his own guide. Sakura with Sasuke to provide a distraction and also to prevent the boy from sparring effectively, hoping pride would drive him away from Naruto. Naruto with Kakashi to keep the Yondaime's legacy safe. The combination together to hopefully get Sasuke killed in line of duty one day, Sakura being an acceptable casualty, while leaving Kakashi with a more determined work-ethic in the best case and basically useless in the worst with Naruto emerging more or less unscathed.

Much as he hated treating his ninja as pawns, it was a skill a good kage needed and he was perhaps the best, longest running kage in the world. As in this case, it had its uses.

"I need to get stronger." The impatient child declared in way of explanation. Though honestly, if he wanted to get stronger, taking a potentially fatal, higher ranked mission was not exactly the best way to go. Then again, life and death struggles could substitute months of training if done right.

"Kakashi hasn't been training you?" The kage feigned surprise, already knowing the answer. He sorted through the papers on his desk, seeking a C-ranked mission that he knew the client was lying about.

"I have been teaching them patience, discipline and the importance of following orders." The jounin covered beautifully. If Sarutobi hadn't known him for years, he might have been convinced. "Patience through having to wait each morning, discipline through accomplishing tasks the hard way and..." The jounin's eye rolled in his head slightly, before staring upward, trying to think of how to claim he'd taught them to follow orders.

"Be that as it may, Kakashi, do you feel your team is ready to perform C-ranked missions at this time?"

"Of course, I have every faith in them." Kakashi's answer was as dutiful and prompt as any shinobi's should be.

"I see. And how does the rest of the team feel about it?" It took a lot for the old man not to cackle maniacally, his plan falling together far sooner than he'd thought it would. He might have let Orochimaru live, twice in fact, but this brat was never near or dear to him and he wasn't the idealistic fool he had been. No, the Uchiha would be dead before he had a chance to betray this village. After personally training... no, creating the monster that Orochimaru became, it was easy to see the signs early on.

"Um, well... I, ...If, if Sasuke thinks we can..." The pink-haired genin murmured in way of an answer, her cheeks turning red as she stolen not-so-hidden glances at her raven-haired teammate.

Casualty nothing, if she died, she deserved it.

"Yoyoi." Naruto began, hopping on one foot and going into an exaggerated kabuki pose as a drum mysteriously began to beat in the background and cherry blossom petals started drifting in a breeze that had no right to exist in a closed room, let alone a kage's office. "To a ninja..." The blond bounced off from the one foot and started hopping on the other one. "To a ninja..." He landed on both feet, taking on a dramatic pose as a backdrop of a sunset, clearly painted on something, appeared behind him, his shadow growing tall across it as though there was a spotlight on him. "Neh, to a ninja... there is a road to battle that can never be avoided!" The drums hit a dramatic beat and were accompanied by woodblocks as yet more sakura petals fell from above. And then-

Bam.

"You idiot, what are you thinking! This is the Hokage's office! Where did you get all these cherry petals from?" Sakura shrieked, pounding the blond on the head and dispelling the genjutsu backdrop and lighting, revealing the petals to be real. She quickly shut out Inner-Sakura as the persona lamented how sweet he was to use sakura petals while they were out of season, clearly a symbol that his love for her never wavered.

So much like Jiraiya, yet so completely different. "Naruto, you know what I told you about reciting lines." The Sandaime admonished, privately amused.

"Hai, hai." The boy sighed and stood up on his own again, giving a thumbs up. "Yoyoi. As with the sunrise, a ninja must always perform their duty."

The Sandaime had a sudden premonition that he must never, ever allow Gai to talk to Naruto.

"Naruto."

The boy sighed again and stood pouting. "Fine... Jiji-san, I know we're ready for this!"

The Hokage smiled at that. Even the minuscule choice of words between 'I'm ready' and 'we're ready' was an indication of how well Naruto embodied the ideals that made Konoha so powerful. He truly was fit to be Hokage one day. Of course he was assuming they'd be on an actual C-ranked mission, instead of the mission he was about to give them, so his miscalculation could be forgiven.

If he survived the coming trial, though honestly Sarutobi doubted anything short of an A-rank nin could survive the initial surprise of his fighting style. "Very well. Please send Tazuna in."

It was a dry summer's day when team 7 and their temporary charge left the village, which through sheer size should be considered at least a town by now, hidden in the leaves. They traveled bravely forth, towards Wave Country, each not knowing when or even if they would ever see their beloved village again. Except none of them were thinking anything along those lines, being more concerned and annoyed with their client's drinking habits and rabbling, so the mood was decided less tense and more apathetic than one might would expect from the preceding sentence.

They walked down the road in a simple triangle formation, Sasuke on point looking bored and broody and trying to ignore Sakura's babbling and Tazuna's rabbling.

Sakura, to the right trying hopelessly to say something meaningful and important to Sasuke about this being their first time outside the village while hoping desperately that she didn't sound stupid or unnatural, leading to a nervousness that would not allow her to stop speaking as her crush didn't seem to notice her and shutting up would be far too sensible, making her words pour out in long, semi-coherent forms, much like this very sentence.

Tazuna, in the middle of them, taking swigs of some unidentified substance in a clay bottle and muttering to himself in an attempt to not feel bad about leading these children to their deaths.

Naruto, on the left, fiddling with a staff with interlocked iron loops at the top while trying to decipher his own handwritten notes as bring his book along was far, far too dangerous.

And finally Kakashi, outside the formation, walking just barely on the edge of the road ahead of Sakura, reading an orange book and giggling perversely every few seconds.

Yes, this intrepid group was having the time of their lives, keeping a cautious eye open for any danger and truly taking their first C-ranked mission with the wariness it warranted. In other words they were bored out of their skulls and not paying any attention to their surroundings... Except Kakashi, who, as we've already covered, is a good ninja and therefore too paranoid to not systematically observe and register what was going on nearby, though he honestly was as relaxed as he ever could be. Kind of makes you wonder, since he was a ninja from the moment he could walk for all intents and purposes, how he hadn't suffered a nervous breakdown by now. But that wasn't really important, the important thing was that his inability to feel safe prompted him to notice, categorize, analyze and then dismiss the two chunin hiding in a fake puddle the moment they were within three-hundred yards of him.

Dismiss, of course, because he wanted to see what his team was capable of in a potentially fatal conflict. A potentially fatal conflict that thanks to his lack of training and the amount of time since the group had last used their ninja skills, theoretically, was several level more dangerous than it should be, even for freshly graduated genin. He did this for one reason and one reason only, the Sharingan needed a belief that death was about to occur, that it's user was about to be killed, to activate and he lacked the will to try convince Sasuke he was trying to kill him himself.

And if the other two got hurt, well, these things happen. Letting them die would be bad, naturally, but wasn't the Sharingan more important in the long run?

Chink.

A spiked chain coiled suddenly around Kakashi's body. Honestly, chain-users? One raiton and they were goners, this was pathetic. He was almost tempted to escape on principle, but unfortunately Sasuke truly needed this. So he let the chain pull apart the shards of drift wood he replace himself with.

"Soru!" The first action of the fight, aside from the jounin's apparent slaying, was for both blond and drunk to disappear.

The assailants took offense to this and screamed an obscenity only to have it turn into a dismayed squawk when a kunai caught part of their chain and embedded it into a tree. They were briefly thrashed by an Uchiha, but as it was Sasuke Uchiha, their thrashing will not be described in detail to keep any amount of coolness from being attributed to said Uchiha. In fact, beating on some helpless, startled and confused nuke-nin chunin who were so very weak and vulnerable to sudden chain-based handicaps was a cruel and highly abusive thing to do. Naturally the Uchiha smirked arrogantly while savagely performing merciless taijutsu moves against them.

Fortunately the chunin you should by now feel very, very sorry for managed to gather their wits despite being attacked in the most painful, but surprisingly least damaging ways possible. Merely another facet of the Uchiha's sadism, clearly. Or perhaps incompetence.

They quickly released said chain and remarkably, despite what had to be aggravating injuries, matched their vicious attacker in a one-on-one stale-mate of parries and evasions. But as it was one-on-one and at a supposed chunin level it also won't be detailed here as a certain raven-haired individual is still involved while a mere genin, thereby implying he is skilled.

Instead we shall look to the left out twin who, upon seeing only one target left and knowing the sacred ninja vow of dueling by heart, decided that he'd rather not sit and watch his brother beat-up a stupid kid who fought like a rabid dog, except less intelligently. He dove at the pink-haired, flat-chested kunoichi, claw extended and roaring to get her to stop staring at her demented, abusive teammate.

Her reaction made him reconsider that she could be some kind of civilian as the moment she saw him she froze. But it didn't really matter, he was already flying forward and no force in this world was going to stop him from tearing out her heart now. Shame she was only an A-cup, but not everyone you ripped the heart out of was going to have a set of Ds. On the bright side he was at least sure this one was female.

"Soru."

As his claw stretched forward unimpeded, a sudden orange mass appeared in front of him, topped by another mass of bright yellow, spiky fluff. Ah dammit, it was the male genin and there was no way to stop the technique. The move was designed to grope women while killing them, dammit, so why couldn't he ever get to actually use it on one?

Behind Naruto Sakura's eyes widened as a gout of blood shot from his chest into the air. One arm grabbed his opponent's and a leg reared back slightly before...

"Rankyaku!"

A bluish wave of energy appeared at point blank range, carving into the nuke-nin as it launched him back in an explosive burst. The former mist-nin, and now former demon brother, landed five meters away, a deep gash running diagonally from one thigh to the opposite collar bone, a stream of blood following after his freshly created corpse.

As this distracted the other brother, his petty and dishonorable advisory stabbed a kunai deep into the side of the man's torso, leaving him to slowly drown in his own blood with the typical heartlessness one would expect from a traitor. It was almost a direct contrast to the face-to-face, nigh instantaneous death his brethren had received.

Of course Sakura was in no condition to compare them at that point, having fainted almost immediately after she was saved to get her new memories smothered down by another aspect of herself. Naruto caught her limp body, ignoring the incredibly painful and poisonously slow healing wound he had received defending her in favor of making sure that she was alright.

At that moment their disappointed jounin-sensei reappeared, shaking his head sadly. "Naruto, while protecting the client is important, you shouldn't have abandoned your teammates like that. Not only that, but now we don't have anyone to interrogate since you killed your opponent." He spoke in a nonchalant way, partially impressed but mostly worried that Sasuke would interpret any praise as favoritism to the blond.

Contrary to his expectation, Sasuke managed to figure out that Kakashi was another mindless supporter and reacted as he always did when confronted by them. He brooded. Stupid jackass of a sensei was standing in his way, coddling him. He understood now, Kakashi was just another fangirl-type like the whole freaking village.

You see, Sasuke didn't brood over others being better than him, or over his past... well, maybe a little over his past... Far and away the thing that made him brood most was fangirls and fangirl-ism. Anytime he encountered someone who liked him because he was the last Uchiha and not Sasuke Uchiha, he brooded. And from that simple fact he spent almost all day, everyday brooding.

Being pensive, that is, not incubating.

And by now it was starting to reach a point where he was assuming that anyone who liked him was automatically after the 'Last Uchiha' and not the real him. Naruto was perhaps the only person who honestly offered him friendship at any point and he'd scorned it, believing the boy simply wanted to be friends with the 'Last Uchiha'. Despite regretting it, a bit, pride would not allow him to change stances or apologize, so he let each passing day build more and more resentment towards him rather than being a normal person and admitting any fault.

He was still a broody bastard, just not for the reason most people tended to assume.

To prove this, Kakashi immediately jumped to the conclusion that Sasuke's brooding was not in fact a cry for someone to look past his title as the last of his clan, choosing instead to believe the boy was displeased that his victim had been the second one to die. He quickly devised a way to make Sasuke feel better about it.

"And allowing yourself to get hit simply to land a cleaner reprisal is absolutely unacceptable for a ninja. Where did you learn such an incompetent fighting style?" The boy fidgeted uncomfortably, but Kakashi was willing to concede at that point. Assuming he truly mastered the Kyushiki he would be a perfect weapon for the village and while that unneeded now, there could well come a day he would be required. "Forget it. Get Tazuna, we'll be moving on shortly."

Having seen two chunin get absolutely decimated by two genin that they had ambushed, he had little worry of what might be encountered further down the road.

Indeed, he was so absorbed in picking apart the fight that he hardly noticed Tazuna's return or how Naruto picked up Sakura before they continued on, outside of an off-hand comment that carrying her had better not effect his stamina later in the mission.

#Author's Notes#

I have never seen a fanfic where Sarutobi has recognized the signs that Sasuke will betray the village, despite having trained Orochimaru. Suspected, sure, but out and out known, never. Neither have I seen one where he arranged the teams to the ends he has here. Oh, Sasuke and Naruto together to let him pass, sure. Naruto and Kakashi so Naruto is safe, all to often. But Sasuke with the others so he can't/won't receive proper training as two are useless for training and pride will keep him from working with the dobe? Never. Then again, I don't remember one where the Hokage wanted Sasuke dead from the start.

I also don't believe that I've seen one where he knew Tazuna, or indeed any client, lie about the mission despite being a ninja and therefore, theoretically, being able to tell when some petty civilian lies to him. Hence, instead of being mistakes, the under-ranked missions become a sort of right of passage to see which ninja deserve to advance prior to whatever criteria being met. Keeping your head while in an unexpected life and death situation should be something a ninja has, after all.


	2. Shigan

Kyushiki Naruto

By ______

Chapter Two: Shigan!

After having taken a boat ride that should have been entirely unnecessary as ninja could literally walk on water, the intrepid team of untrained genin arrived in Wave. Of course there really wasn't much to see, given the dense forest growth and morning fog, but then again they weren't there for sightseeing were they?

It was about this time that Sakura roused herself. She had a lingering moment of bliss, being carried piggy-back style by someone, her head resting lightly on thick, silky hair that smelled slightly of old books, ramen and the forests of Konohagakure. Then Outer-Sakura heard Inner-Sakura coo something about true love and how sweet, which bolted her awareness all the way into panicking range.

There was only a single thing in this world that could make Inner-Sakura coo, subject matter notwithstanding.

She froze in terror, finding that the situation was every bit as bad as she feared. She was being carried by her blond teammate, her cheek nestled against his surprisingly soft hair. Not only that, his inexplicably callous-free hands were cupping her bottom and forcing her to press her torso against his back! The pervert!

Inner-Sakura snorted and asked how else someone was suppose to carry an unconscious, stick-figure of a teammate. She then narrated a fantasy of him actually fondling their rear, with their shorts removed, and lamented the fact that they lacked large, cushy breasts to press against him right now. Somewhere around when the persona started threatening her outer aspect about what she'd do if her trivial diets stunted their chest's development, Sakura snapped back into awareness.

"Na-Ru-To!" Bam.

Inner-Sakura exploded into violent cursing, reminding Outer-Sakura that her Naruto was still injured. An injury he got saving Outer-Sakura's ungrateful butt. At the very least that gave him rights to fondle it a little.

Despite the surprise blow to the back of the head, Naruto only wobbled a step, careful not to drop the pinkette until his footing was normal again. Not that he dropped her then either, unless you consider gently placing someone on their feet to be dropping, in which case he dropped her very carefully.

"Are you okay, Sakura-chan?" The blond genin immediately asked after she was standing on her own again.

"Hmph." As if Sakura was going to acknowledge the pervert after he'd taken advantage of her while she was unconscious for who knows how long.

"Sakura-cha-" The blond cut himself off suddenly, whirling towards a specific tree. "Rankyaku!"

The blue energy blade impacted the trunk, cutting a deep notch into it before exploding, leaving a wide diagonal rut. A terrified white rabbit hopped forward as though surrendering.

"Baka!" Bam. "How could attack this poor, defenseless little bunny?" Sakura demanded, cuddling the still traumatized rabbit.

Inner-Sakura cursed again, called her outer aspect a twit and pointed out that the hare in question had a pure white winter coat and it was summer. The rabbit was raised to be used in substitution jutsu! What kind of sicko would go through that much trouble when any piece of junk lying nearby would do instead of endangering another living thing? And why on earth would you want to carry a normal white rabbit into battle with you? A vorpal bunny sure, but an ordinary snow hare?

Kakashi came to the same conclusion at about the same time, though without the rabbit raising issues and with his thoughts on the matter tempered by the sound of a blade whistling through the air. "Get down!" The jounin shouted, diving over their client.

"Tekkai!" Naruto had a tough life. In an odd way, this simple fact was what had allowed him to master the skills he currently had. Running away as if his life depended on it, which it often did, on a daily basis had greatly accelerated his soru and geppou training, in turn letting him focus on the next abilities up. But ultimately the skill he was best at, the one that had gotten the most practice in the end was tekkai. First against the force of drunken civilians, then, once he could escape civilians without a problem, against the strength of chunin and their kunai and finally against the power of a jounin and his katana, fearing the kyuubi's influence some days after the chunin failed.

Each event had injured him but each event also set a precedence. Had his attackers not announced their intent or aimed for less protected vitals he wouldn't be here today. As it was, an lesser sword brought to bare against him was more likely to snap than pierce.

Kubikiri was no lesser sword. It was forged by the sword smiths of Kirigakure for the express purpose of being a legendary, world famous weapon. In most regards it fell short of that goal, but it remained one of the master works of the most practiced makers of heavy, oversized blades in the elemental countries. While not the deadliest or sharpest zanbato, it was by far the sturdiest and, outside of Samehada, also the heaviest.

Likely, even with tekkai in place, the best Naruto could hope for when clashing with the weapon was the be cut to the bone and have a groove forcefully notched into said bone. Of course that was working on the assumption that he knew how to stick his feet to the ground.

With a clank strangely reminiscent of metal striking metal the massive sword hit the genin's braced arms with full force, lifting the genin into the air and flinging him backwards into a tree while the weapon itself veered harshly, spinning off course and burying itself halfway into the loamy soil of wave country. Zabuza, who had already jumped to land on the weapon's hilt by then, landed awkwardly in a bush of poison ivy, managing to keep his footing only by grabbing the tree for support.

His wrist was promptly seized by the rattled but unhurt genin who had also hit the tree.

"Tekkai." The shinobi in safety orange shouted again, instantly freezing up.

The nuke-nin didn't particularly care, or at least he didn't until he realized his hand was caught fast and the brat's fingers were, while not too tightly gripping him, completely locked in place. His response was to rear back his free arm and deliver a powerful blow straight on the kid's nose.

Now, when he thought of a powerful blow, it was more in lines of flesh versus flesh or flesh versus training log, so he was unprepared when it turned out to be closer to flesh versus wrought iron statue. Solid wrought iron statue, including the traditionally fragile nose. And so, Zabuza, demon of the mist, A-ranked missing nin and attempted usurper of a kage nearly broke his own hand fighting a genin on their first C-ranked mission, one month after being instated.

While the nuke-nin cried out in pain, Naruto shifted to the offensive, rearing back one leg again. Zabuza caught the slight shift of grip, indicating the muscles were no longer locked and immediately broke the surprisingly flimsy hold.

"Rankyaku." The legs swept forward just as the target fled back towards his weapon, narrowly evading the blue lash as it sailed into another tree.

Tugging his weapon free and watching the resultant damage of the brat's strange jutsu, the feared former mist-nin decided it was time to hide. "Kiimphhr mm 'utsu." The man cried out in muffled, completing the Kirigakure no jutsu and flooding the area with thick, rolling fog.

"Hitosochi." Using the cover provided, the blond hopped in place, his arms angled oddly, promptly vanishing the moment he landed from the third bounce.

One would assume that having a rotted, semi-legible tome would be a disadvantage when trying to develop a fighting style written in it. True, if exact recreation was the goal, it would be a rather great handicap, but when you're Naruto Uzumaki and neither libraries nor bookshops are accessible thanks to civilians running them, you work with what you have on hand.

In this particular case, that was for the best. There was no move called Hitosochi in 'The Tales Of Kumadori The Lion'. There was nothing even close to it except for the Umisenken from 'Mighty PandaMan Genma!', which was mostly because Naruto had read that volume and figured that Hitosochi should work the same way when he invented it.

In truth the entirety of Hitosochi came from just one scene that was so illegible the boy never understood exactly what was going on. In it Fukurou hid from some evil and vile 'Franky Battler 36' using a step technique. In an undamaged version, the reader would see that it was a gag using the incredible speed of Soru to fake invisibility. In Naruto's version it appeared that Fukurou the Silent, Lover of Rumors, used an actual invisibility technique and then was hunted down when he started talking. Even heroes had their flaws.

Of course, something from 'Mighty PandaMan Genma!' should work about as well as something from 'Tales Of Kumadori The Lion', but when there's an entire village out on an annual 'fox hunt' chasing you, things like physical impossibility aren't particularly important.

"Nm fmmick whm!" Zabuza screamed in muffled, swinging his blade at where the brat last stood in a wide arch, hoping he was still within reach.

Nothing. And then...

"Rankyaku!" The blond genin reappeared, standing on the flat of his blade, one leg already reared back.

The former mist jounin nearly broke his spine leaning away from the kid's attack. If he had eyebrows, they would now be missing.

The blue wave struck the scratched hitai-ate on its side, exploding in a burst of concussive force the moment it stopped slicing, sending the large man reeling to the ground.

But A-rank wasn't something awarded haphazardly, even after taking a blow to the forehead Zabuza was still in practically top form. He rolled backwards with the strike, twisting his zanbato to rid it of its passenger while performing half-signs with his off hand. Six new Zabuza appeared in a ring around where the brat should have landed. They would take care of whatever the kid might do. Hopefully.

And by the time he turned around, it was all but too late.

There were these scarce, peaceful moments that allowed a missing-nin to reflect back, through the years with an odd clarity the nuke-nin in question typically lacked in life. Often, for ones such as Momochi Zabuza, these moments came at entirely inappropriate times, such as when one was staring down a shrieking, crackling bluish bolt of energy that was all but guaranteed to rip his heart from his very chest. You'd think he would have heard something that trying to sneak up on him.

At that moment, seeing his death sweeping forward with a glaring Sharingan to guide it, he came to a profound conclusion.

He shouldn't have tried to usurp the Mizukage just for assigning him a team of genin. Honestly, what had he been thinking? He should have just taught the brats to be more like him or let them die horrible deaths on their first mission. It was just simpler that way and left so much more time to prepare. Hell, there was a chance they could have turned out like Haku.

Man, all those years fleeing from hunter-nin seemed so pointless and wasted now.

The icy mirror that suddenly sprang to life between the two jounin was a mixed blessing for both. On one hand it prevented the attack from running home, on the other it revealed that there was another competitor present with a stake in saving the nuke-nin.

When something swept down from the trees above, crashing gracelessly through the branches, he'd had enough. The nuke-nin leapt aside just in time to see the blond genin his clones should have killed by now impact the ground he'd been standing on with enough force to both shatter the mirror when it hit his shins and still partially bury him, the bright yellow hair clearly sharpened into needles.

A missing-nin doesn't survive by being reckless and Zabuza had been a missing-nin for a very long time by non-Akatsuki standards. Stupid immortals skewing the averages...

Despite how many might think of him, he was a very cautious man. If possible he'd only fight a battle where he knew he'd win. At worst he'd try all the way up to even odds, beyond that it was time to flee.

The current odds were clearly not in his favor. He'd had Haku spy on the demon brothers when they made their attempt, on some level hoping they'd at least survive and could be recovered later. When they'd been killed by genin he'd been forced to dissect what his pet kunoichi had seen from as many angles as possible. In the end he chalked it up to a combination of bad luck and skilled genin.

Unlike the demon brothers, Haku had been angled at a perspective that let her see Naruto reappear, labeling at least one of his abilities as a mastered shunshin instead of what it truly was. The Uchiha was obviously some kind of taijutsu freak sadist and the pink-haired kunoichi a genjutsu using cheerleader/fangirl. Skilled genin, taught by Sharingan-Kakashi after all, but still limited to the high-end of expectations. If he neutralized Kakashi his clones could kill them at his leisure.

Only the blond brat didn't use a mastered, but still detectable shunshin. Well he might, while unprecedented there were genin with multiple skills mastered so early in their career. But that really wasn't the point. The point was the brat was obviously a taijutsu specialist and not the ninjutsu specialist he'd expected. From there, knowing the typical organization of Konoha genin assault/heavy combat teams, it wasn't hard to envision the other two as equally skilled at their respective crafts, one being ninjutsu and the other genjutsu. The thing was, that meant the Uchiha brat had killed a chunin using only taijutsu when he was specializing in another field. Add to that that his field was unknown and the girl had yet to be seen doing anything, then boost both of them level to at least near chunin in their non-specialized fields...

These weren't genin! Dammit, this had to be a trap of some kind. Was Konoha after his bounty or just trying to put Wave in their pocket?

The blond rose to his feet, totally unharmed and ready to fight, his sensei a vague silhouette unfurling a scroll some scant meters behind him.

Zabuza attributed it to luck that the remaining gen... chunin were staying out of the fight, likely in some stupid formation to try and cover their client. They'd be an inexcusable distraction while fighting Kakashi and would tear Haku apart if he had her face them alone while he dealt with the other jounin. And for the time being Haku was far to valuable to throw away to get through one mission.

Heh, that settled that though, Konohagakure was going to turn Wave into a vassal state. There's no other reason to send such a powerful squad for the amount the bridge-builder could offer.

For a brief moment his reputation and pride warred with his survival instincts. On one hand, it'd be known that he had failed and pretty much the only reason you hired a high-paid nuke-nin was because you had a guarantee that the job would get done. On the other, ditching a suicidal mission was a perk to Kiri-nuke-nins. If the Mizukage assigned you a suicide mission, you either succeeded and were forgiven for whatever you did to piss him off or died, whether by the mission or the Kirigakure hunter-nin after you for dereiliction of duty a few days later. Course, death is death so arguing over details like what killed any particular Kiri-nin was the sort of nit-picking that got you sent on a suicide mission.

The Mizukage isn't a very popular boss, what with the civil wars, repeated kekkei genkai slaughters and nihilistic murdering of subordinates.

Then again, nobody really wanted an Uchiha to lead them, not even other Uchiha. Just at what Itachi had done at the idea of an Uchiha Hokage!

If only Kirigakure had thought to include Konohagakure's 'no Uchiha kage' clause is their own charter...

With a simple gesture he instructed his subordinate to flee, closely following her while unleashing denser mist jutsu in his wake. If anyone knew Gato hired him and he failed his reputation was ruined, but if Gato were to be killed by 'Konoha-nins', no one would associate it with him. Especially if the man's thugs and records weren't left around to dispute the claim.

...Hell, thinking along those lines, he'd been trying to save enough money to build his own hidden village. Sea country sounded like a nice, quiet area to start collecting the mist kekkei genkai users to. If he was ever close to that much funding, it was in Gato's mansion. He chided himself for not realizing this sooner.

Heh, who knows, Konoha might actually be grateful.

"Yo-yo-yo! That's right villainous assassins! Flee from Naruto the great, future Hokage! Yo-yo-yo!" Naruto laughed at the nuke-nins' retreating backs in a stylized gloating pose. Or at least to the open air twenty-seven degrees off from their retreating backs, the mist made it kind of hard to judge.

"...Well, that went well." Kakashi noted, rolling up his scroll lazily before taking out an orange book. It certainly was nice to have no debilitating injuries after two ambushes, though the fact that Sasuke was still Sharingan-less was inconvenient. But a nuke-nin like Zabuza survived only through a reputation of success, he'd be back, probably with a better strategy. Unfortunately that meant he'd need to train Sasuke in order for him to survive long enough to activate his eyes.

Sigh, what to do? What to do? Hmm... Tree-walking was basic, right? After having been a ninja since the age of five, the early training methods were a little fuzzy. Wasn't there something with a leaf before that? ...Nah.

Books are, by their very nature, subject to the times and languages they are published in. Often, when translating something from a far off land into a more easily understood, localized version, errors are made as the translator relates aspects within to things found in their own, everyday lives.

It would be quite easy, for instance, to transform trained assassins into ninja, even when the assassins in question had basically nothing in common. And all it would really take to get a local reader to relate more readily to the storyline, was a few minor alterations that had no baring on the plot and a quick entry among the other moves at the end to bridge the cultural gap.

Thus was hanetacchi born through the mind of an Elemental nations translator. The editor in question had gone out of his way some decades before the founding of Konohagakure and tried to decipher just how ninja could walk up walls and cling to surfaces. Naturally, the ninja questioned all told him exaggerations about the power of chakra control in hopes of garnering greater acknowledgment of their craft and a higher volume of mission contracts for their clans.

The editor loyally recorded the most agreed upon traits.

At its lowest level the invented move allowed its user to cling to surfaces, walk on water and do all those other little tricks ninja were commonly seen doing.

At its highest level it allowed a light tap from one finger to destroy an entire castle, a brush against a target to stop their heart and a poke or two to cure any ailments the human body could suffer from.

Naturally the editor then claimed it was the most difficult to master skill, despite every single one of the elite assassins knowing it well enough to casually stand or walk on walls or water. To the editor it was no big deal and nobody actually paid too much attention to the text to notice the inconsistencies, such as when Lucci states he'd sink like a stone no matter what before running across the surface of the water to get back from ship to tower.

Most peasants were illiterate back then anyway.

Yet, in the impressionable mind of young Naruto the idea sank and festered.

And that's why he balked when their sensei tried to teach them tree-walking without undergoing the hours of 'harmonious meditation' his notes recommended.

It didn't help that Sakura got it on her first try, though the resulting praise did make Inner-Sakura very pleased... Right up until Outer-Sakura socked him and started another tirade.

It also didn't help when Kakashi, hearing Naruto's complaints and then considering Tsunade, the Rasengan and the Jyuuken, agreed that you could indeed perform such impossible acts with little more than chakra control.

Still, his sensei said it was possible to achieve the basics of the technique without meditating for hours and, being Naruto, running up the side of a tree for days only to fall off over and over again was certainly seen as a better, faster way to learn. After all, it took Naruto four or five hours to actually fall into a meditative trance and about a hour to fall asleep from that trance, so logging in any meditation time was pretty much impossible for him.

Still, throwing yourself from great heights was part of learning another move and at the very least it'd give him some practice before finding a cliff overlooking the ocean.

The week passed disturbingly quiet and peacefully, and by the time the bridge was completed everyone's nerves were on edge, expecting... something at least. Some form of interference or offensive from Gato.

None came. Even his ships seemed to disappear from the surrounding waters.

So it came to pass that a sullen Kakashi, a cheery Sakura, a moderately happy Sasuke and an over-energized Naruto set out to return to their home village, each so caught up in their own thoughts about 'still no Sharingan', 'Sasuke/Naruto-kun's in a good mood today, squee!', 'nice to get attention for something I actually did' and 'I know the hanetacchi, I know the hanetacchi' to even spare a bit of attention towards the former Kiri-nin and side-kick sneaking away with millions of stolen ryo less than a hundred yards from them.

Sometime later the two groups arrived at their destinations, Kakashi and his genin returning to report a complete success, no casualties to a slightly disappointed Hokage and Zabuza and his charge to a secret missing-nin lab on a much feared island officially owned by Orochimaru. After killing or recruiting the squatters and purchasing it through the missing-nin network, the new leader of Shimagakure set about making his village name known...

Hmm... How does a village become famous anyway? Which of course put him on the unfortunate path of sending a team to the next chunin exams.

But Zabuza is only a supporting character, so let's get back to our main focus.

Hinata was many things, most of which made her an irresistible target for tentacled beasts from beyond.

She was shy, a noble's daughter bordering on princess, liked to avoid most other people and areas that other people were likely to wander into by chance during a heated encounter of the tentacly kind, blushed a lot, was underaged yet impressively bustier than most adults, the equivalent of a ninja schoolgirl in a Japanese themed setting, had a 'super power' that had potential for perverted use and was just the sort to easily submit to anyone's deviancies provided they could fabricate a mostly believable Naruto-form.

Unfortunately she wasn't actually a 'magical girl' perse and that same 'power with potential perverted uses' allowed her to see through almost any attempt to imitate Naruto, excusing commandeering his body wholesale which left you with a demon lord Kyuubi to deal with.

Besides that, they'd have to find her first.

Yes, few things made one quite as sneaky as a love-struck stalker girl who routinely kept up with, and out of sight from, a hyper active blond capable of moving faster than even her eyes could follow, turning invisible and leaping off of air itself. Where a more normal Hinata might stand in a corner and try to avoid eye contact from behind her teammates, this Hinata could seemingly vanish into thin air the moment any watching jounin blinked. And she frequently did instead of standing around pretending she didn't exist.

Which made it fortunate she was teamed up with two scent-based trackers as Naruto was convinced her lavender and vanilla scent was just a natural feature of Konohagakure, given how often he'd smelt it everywhere he went. Unlike sight, sound and, crimson blush, touch she'd never needed to compensate for how she smelled.

And so Kiba and Shino were on her tail, with a bemused Kurenai following them. All she'd done was absently mention team 7 was scheduled to return today, trying to lift the poor girl's flagging enthusiasm, and poof! No more Hinata.

Which is all just a segue leading up to them standing beside the distraught kunoichi, watching as the blond systematically broke his fingers on a training log.

"Shigan!" Crunch. "Shigan!" Crunch. "Shigan!" Ka-Thump. "Eh? I did it! Yo-yo-y..." Thud.

And also get to witness the horrors of what happens when you get a training log stuck on your index finger and then tried to cheer by flinging your arms above your head.

Shino... well, blinked isn't exactly the right term, but expresses the sentiment behind his inaction. "Did he just perform the Jyuuken?"

"A,ano..." Hinata trailed off, not entirely sure of what that was. She'd seen him practicing the 'shigan' ever since he mastered tekkai, but it'd never punctured the training log before.

"Come on, let's get the idiot to the hospital." Kiba grumbled, Akamaru yipping in agreement from on top of his head.

"Ara." Hinata muttered softly, fidgeting.

"Heh, who knows, you might even get to have a moment alone while he's still asleep." Kiba threw in, shoving the log off the KO'd ninja.

"Aru...?" Hinata gurgled, turned red and passed out.

"Kiba." Shino reprimanded, adjusting his glasses ominously.

Kurenai just sighed in disgust. A kunoichi was suppose to be independent and strong, she'd thought she'd lucked out and gotten the one non-fangirl in the lot but Hinata was even worse than Sakura or Ino. Well, as far as her crush being a weakness that is.

Sakura woke up and decided today was a nice day. Yes, today was definitely the day Sasuke would finally realize that she was his only true love and the only one he could possibly want to restart the Uchiha clan with. After all, her hair was the most fearsome color, apocalypse pink, rivaled only by piratanical orange and demonanical red as color most feared by ninja. In fact its terrifying color might be what was driving him away! Why hadn't she thought of that before, it was so obvious a shy and misunderstood orphan like him would balk at the thought of asking her out while he hair practically screamed 'dangerous'.

Having come to this realization, Sakura rushed to the nearest saloon, briefly puzzled over the drunks, and then proceeded to a nearby salon to see about dying.

Unfortunately she bumped into someone very interested in the other type of dying. Well, into might be an overstatement as it was more bounced off a sand shield than anything else. But the important thing was that she had their attention.

Dead teal eyes gaze blankly at her as the suna-nin slowly rasped in a low and ominous voice created by being way too close to sand for pretty much an entire lifetime. "You, you attacked... me?" The eyes glowed briefly, a burnt umber shade as a four pointed star appeared within them.

"G, Gaara, this, this really isn't the time or place for-" A blond girl with a giant fan started, backing off the instant she saw the eyes.

"Sakura-chan! Sakura-chan, guess what?" Naruto broke the tension appearing so suddenly even Shakaku was given pause. "I got shigan, isn't that awesome? Yo-yo-yo!"

"N,Naruto... look behind you..." The fearsome haired girl whimpered.

"Eh?" However unusual, a request from his true love was a request from his true love. Finding himself eye to eye with what was assuredly a demon of some sort, he did what he'd long rehearsed. "Y,yoi yoi. How truly frightening. This terror, this fear... You are a truly worthy foe. I think I'm beginning to like you." Reciting the short, paraphrased monologue was mostly bravado in face of the monster wearing human skin before him, but at least it helped him get into stance.

In contrast to all expectations, the dead, evil eyes instantly cleared to a brighter teal that slowly faded back their original, dull shade. "Temari. You are going to marry this man." The dread voice commanded suddenly as the suna-nin swept away, sand flowing around him in agitation.

"What!" The blond kunoichi shrieked before quieting herself and demurely accepting out of fear.

"What!" Inner-Sakura cried, raging against the world in general and her Outer aspect specifically.

"What?" Outer-Sakura blinked, utterly lost.

"Yo-yoi?" Naruto tilted his head, fairly sure that was the point his foe was suppose to smash him into the ground. Then his eyes caught the sand. "Suna-suna-no-mi..."

Shakaku, already having settled himself in drunken remembrance shivered as another memory surfaced, a memory of being trapped inside a fruit and set adrift upon the open seas. Caught up in his nightmarish reminiscing, he completely forgot he was suppose to be messing with his host and making him kill things right now.

"Mother's silent." Gaara noted as Temari ran to catch up with him.

"You mean..." The kunoichi trailed off, having no clue what-so-ever about any possible significance that could have.

Gaara simply nodded, believing the girl who'd never heard a voice in her head understood the immensity of a voice that never shut up quieting down.

"S,Sakura? Did I just..." Naruto trailed off, sharing a blond moment with Temari as he had no idea what just happened.

"You just got engaged." The pinkette murmured in agreement, Outer Sakura trying to puzzle out why the extremely scary suna-nin had just left while Inner Sakura frantically tried to do something, anything, to reach Naruto.

"Yo-yoi?" There was a moment as Naruto thought that over. "Gah! B,but Sakura-chan, I, you..."

Sakura beamed, seeing the perfect opportunity before her. "I'm happy for you. Congratulations. Make her happy."

Inner-Sakura shrieked in despair as her Outer aspect had their body step away from the one they truly loved, leaving him with apparent approval to pursue that awful harpy from Sunagakure. Why was her Outer aspect such an ungrateful bitch?

#Author's Notes#

Haku is a girl. The closest she is ever allowed to being male is the version in 'Sad Life Deserves More', which is to say 98-99% female. May no bishounen crossdressers ever blight your manga. So mote it be.

Except when it's funny.

Or involves Jusenkyo.

Oh and PandaMan is still One Piece canon, take a closer look, he's everywhere. We don't really know his name or story, so I'm going with 'Genma' and 'on a quest to train his son to be the ultimate martial artist'.

I'd also like to say that while Kakashi was indeed bias towards Sasuke, I doubt it had as much effect as most people attribute it as having. At least in terms of ninja skills. Sasuke was top of his class in a year composed mostly of clan heirs, so he essentially had a head start yet under Kakashi's training keeps tying with Naruto at various points. And despite portrayals to the contrary in fandom, he does appear to apply and push himself to master new skills presented to him, not to the same levels as Naruto, but still enough that if he was receiving 'competent' training as opposed to Naruto's 'self' he'd be much farther ahead.

The point I'm trying to make is that outside of reenacting moves for others to copy, Kakashi sucks as a teacher. On some level that's even how he taught tree-walking and until Sasuke awoke his Sharingan, there was no perceivable advancement of himself in comparison to his teammates. I'd even go so far as to suggest that on some level he was correct in fleeing to Orochimaru for training as it's made obvious Kakashi is a crappy teacher who can't bring out any of his student's true potential. Even the inept training style Jiraiya uses gets better results and his student had no grasp of the basics when that training started.

In short, even if Sasuke does get all his teacher's attention and special training sessions, it isn't necessarily doing him any good if the teacher can't really teach. Yeah it sucks for his teammates in someways, but if his teachings are incompetent and incomprehensible then self-training might actually benefit them... Which gives me an idea...

Sorry, ranted a bit there.

Say, did anyone else notice in the anime that they say 'too much and the bark breaks, too little and you slip off' yet Sasuke kept breaking the bark under his foot and Naruto kept sliding off? Now, I don't know about Sasuke, but since Naruto's poor control was from having too much chakra, shouldn't the bark have been snapping under his foot? And that never actual actually bugged me until just now.

Ano – That Over There

Ara – Oh, Ah or Flaw/Defect

Aru – To live, To be, To have or A certain...

All of which are used incorrectly in fanfiction as things shy people say instead of spitting out what they want to say. At least here they can be taken at one of their literal values.

Mind you, I can totally see a shy person randomly saying 'that over there' to try and draw attention off themselves or using the trailing off 'A certain...' when trying to bring up their feelings. And I'm probably going to use them incorrectly elsewhere anyway...


	3. Written Exam

Kyushiki Naruto

By _

Chapter Three: Written Exam

"But Sakura-chan!"

Sasuke paused, watching as one of his teammates dramatically wept, crouched on his knees, hands clawing beseechingly in the air toward the female member of team 7.

"Stop doing that!" The pink-haired one shrieked, kicking the blond in the head.

"B,but I don't even know her! She'll go back to Suna and never be seen again... Truly, she is not the one that I-"

"Naruto." Sakura spoke with chilling calm. Her usual approach was clearly inadequate, hence, when her Inner self started demanding she use her big brain once in a while and understand why Naruto was better than Sasuke, she actually took part of the suggestion to heart. The wrong part. "If you really want to become Hokage, which wife is more likely to help you achieve it? A clanless kunoichi or a political marriage to Konoha's only ally among the Five?" Not that she actually knew, or anything, but appealing to his sense of duty was a pretty sure way to drive him off. In realty having ties with another village is not something a kage wants quite as close to them as a spouse. The best place to put a spy or assassin was directly in their target's bed after all. "And how do you think Suna would take it if our Hokage once scorned a bride they offered? She's probably the equivalent of a princess, the daughter of their kage. Did you even think about that?"

Of course, there was no plausible way the daughter of a kage would be engaged to a weirdo like Naruto on the street like that. That was about as likely as heavy handed foreshadowing suddenly popping up and whacking everyone over the head with the fact that the improbably big fox from the prologue created earthquakes and tsunamis simply by waving its tails around.

Everyone paused as a sudden and profound visualization of how the kyuubi must have looked when it made those legendary shock waves flitted across their mind's eye.

...

Naruto wept silently as his face hardened into a stoic mask. Sakura-chan was right, of course. Even if the link was so tendentious and inescapable as a political alliance marriage, there was no reason for it to be loveless and resentful as well. Perhaps, one day, he could truly love the fan-wearing Suna kunoichi... perhaps. But to even have a chance, did he truly have to give up on is love for Sakura-chan? Was he even capable of that? Oh the agony of-

Like the heartless bastard we all know he is, and certainly not like the slightly curious and concerned teammate he was pretending to be, Sasuke interrupted.

"What are you two doing?" Yes, behind the bemused, slightly annoyed face the sadistic, vile Uchiha was almost certainly smirking at fooling these pathetic weaklings into believing he was their friend even though he had no possible motive for doing so. Almost certainly.

"Naruto got engaged to a Suna kunoichi." Sakura chirped happily, Inner Sakura cursing her every step of the way.

Sasuke puzzled over that for a second. His blond teammate was frighteningly competent in combat, but not the most intelligent person outside of it. There was only one explanation the Uchiha could see given his long history with fangirls, it was a trap! Naturally he had to open his mouth to make his teammates see what idiots they were. "Did either of you even consider that they might want to steal Naruto's bloodline from Konoha?" He pointed out in one of those 'doesn't appear to be a sneer, but since he's an Uchiha you know it is' sneers.

"Bloodline?" Naruto questioned blankly, tilting his head with one hand on his chin, the other crossed beneath in a dramatic thinking pose.

"You can move instantly from point A to point B, launch some kind of chakra projectile without handsigns and got a zanbato to bounce off your skin. Nobody else I've ever seen or heard of can do any of those things, except the Yon... daime's..." Sasuke's mind whirled to a halt. But no, the Yondaime's instant movement jutsu included a bright flash of light and his pure chakra attack was suppose to be close range. And he never deflected blades with his skin. He must really be getting paranoid if he even considered Naruto being related to the Yondaime or rediscovering his jutsu. Just because they were the only two blonds of that shade and both of them have similar features didn't mean they're related.

"Except what, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura asked, hanging from the last Uchiha's every word.

"Except a kekkei genkai." He covered his trailing off quickly. Kakashi had all but confessed to Naruto having a kekkei genkai, so it was the obvious conclusion. Against a clanless dropout he could have never accepted any indication of their rivalry being valid, yet with just a few words from Kakashi he could easily see himself on the same level. Two kekkei genkai users with nothing but old scraps of paper to train them. Yes, his pride could accept that. Of course, once he got his Sharingan, he'd leave his rival in the dust but until then...

"But that was just soru, rankyaku and tekkai..." Naruto countered with his eyes closed, a look of pseudo-deep thought on his face.

"And where did you learn them?" Sasuke shot back quickly, perhaps eager to be proven right, perhaps wanting to believe his team was just so awesome it had two rare bloodlines. Or perhaps seeing a means of getting the pink haired lamprey to latch onto a new target.

"One day, long ago, I, Naruto the Orange, happened upon a tome of ancient knowledge..." Naruto narrated, taking an odd, flashy stance in preparation.

"That makes sense, all my clan techniques w- are on old scrolls in the Uchiha library. I suppose whenever the Uzumaki clan migrated here they had to transcribe it down to book form to make it safer and easier to move without anyone questioning what it was." Sasuke quickly cut off the story, knowing how bad it could get well in advance.

"But..." Naruto began, uncertain of how to refute that claim despite knowing it was false.

"You're so clever Sasuke." Sakura chirped, happily. "Aren't you glad you have something left from your family?" She added, turning her attention to Naruto briefly.

Naruto knew the series of events that could have led him to a trashcan where a copy of his clan's techniques was unlikely bordering on impossible. But, it would be nice to believe and no one else had ever performed any of the abilities had they? Maybe, just for a little while, he could pretend it was true. "Yoi-yoi! Of course is it, Sakura-chan!"

"We still have a problem here, there's no way we can allow another village, especially another major one, to steal your kekkei genkai from Konoha, allies or not. We have to either come up with a stronger claim than whatever this kunoichi has or drive her away somehow. If we flat out refuse without justification there could be very real political fall out against whatever standing your clan had and your desire to become Hokage..." The Uchiha trailed off, suddenly realizing that on some level he had just validated his rival's desire to ascend to the highest seat of ninjadom currently available in the world. Nothing could stop the waxing exposition that was to follow.

Nothing except a sudden scene change.

Saturobi was not a happy Hokage.

Typically when he wanted someone dead, especially someone within his own village, all he had to do was sign a single form. While he may disagree with his advisers and Danzo as far as everyone was concerned, including the other involved parties, there were still uses that made them more valuable as they were than they would be dead of 'natural causes'. For all the reckless, cut-throat aggression Danzo had he lacked the subtly and guile to avoid the Sandaime's manipulations, let alone conceal his activities.

The ROOT were, much as he protested its methods in public, a necessary utility. They did tasks that kept the village safe, yet clean of the harsh reputation deserved from that same level of security. Not only that, but once the time came they would be the decisive weapon, the hidden, poisoned senbon to the much more obvious, gleaming katana of the main ninja force.

Oh, Danzo didn't intend for them to have such a use, true, but then Danzo didn't know any of the hidden facets of the seals he'd used upon them, or the numerous measure to... encourage loyalty in ANBU known to be spies or traitors.

Honestly, at times it felt like he was the last real ninja left, even old rivals like Danzo had long forgotten that the shadows were a ninja's truest ally and pulling strings unseen was a far better task than leveling a castle with a boss summons.

Well, Danzo hadn't forgotten, exactly. It was more like he believed that just because his opponent acted like he didn't notice him, he was undetected. A poor and senile view for any ninja to ever risk having for a moment, let alone the years the war hawk had carried on.

Still, he had his uses.

Sasuke Uchiha, however, did not.

Well that might be a bit too harsh. Compared to his brother, Sasuke Uchiha did not.

Sadly in order to regain said brother, the Uchiha genin had to die. And not just die in any old way, but die in such a way that the top former ANBU captain who knew every method of assassination and 'accident' causing would have no hesitation in accepting that it was an unforeseen and unpreventable event with no involvement or interference from his office at the least. Seeing as the former ANBU captain had used, planned or drilled in every method Konohagakure had conceived of and no one nearly as proficient had advanced the art further, a rare few barely catching up at best...

His hands were bound tight. He could only rarely set up the sort of incidents that might kill the target but leave Naruto alive, meaning that in many ways the request he was looking at in his hands was a kami-send.

Why the Kazekage would specifically ask that Sasuke Uchiha fight his youngest son and jinchuriki, Gaara was unimportant. To him, it was simply a convenient way set up the death of three birds with a single stone. Sasuke's death would regain Itachi as Konohagakure's loyal Uchiha, the event itself would doubtlessly bring Orochimaru to observe it and with a reverse summons seal beneath the stadium, powered by enough jounin, any evidence of Sasuke's highly unlikely survival, Orochimaru and the Ichibi were erased from their world in a single sweep.

The Akatsuki would have to spend years, perhaps even decades randomly summoning beasts and demons from other worlds and subduing them in hopes of eventually bringing the One Tails back. Once all those ends were dealt with, removing the few remaining threats that required ROOT's existence would take less than five years, allowing him to dispose of it and Danzo with them.

And then, perhaps, there could be true peace for a time...

That was a foolish dream, of course. Another enemy or emergency would surely arise from beyond the horizons, rattling its saber. But an old man could hope on behalf of others and an old man could dream of the future he'd been ushering in for so long.

"Yo." Kakashi muttered, not looking up from his book. Instead of declarations of his tardiness, there was whispered murmurs and replies.

"Kakashi-sensei, how would you go about stopping a political marriage without starting a war?" Sakura chirped suddenly, standing upright from the team's huddle.

The scarecrow shrugged, flipping through I For Icha Icha. "Depends on who's involved and how important their clan or house is."

"Well, say it was someone with an almost extinct kekkei genkai, without a clan to back them, to the daughter of the Kazekage?" Sakura pressed anxiously as her teammates flanked her position, just as eager to hear the answer. She wasn't quite sure just where the idea of that poorly-groomed tomboy being the Kazekage's daughter had gotten involved, she had such messy hair and didn't even wear make-up!

Kakashi immediately surmised what had happened, his team had bumped into the suna genin here for the chunin exam and the kunoichi had instantly fallen for Sasuke... Leading to Sakura's fearful question. Poor little fangirl... But this made the perfect motivation. "Well, if they're a genin I'd expect that with the proper threats and treaties involved, they might be assigned a 'diplomatic negotiation' and 'clan restoration' mission to Sunagakure as a means of strengthening the alliance between our two villages." He lied through his teeth, already knowing how Konoha felt about the Sharingan would never allow such a splitting of loyalty and risk of betrayal from its wielders. "If they were a chunin or higher, however, the request could be actively declined with neither side losing face as their value to the village went so far beyond what would be offered outside of the daimyo's direct order or an incident involving a conditional surrender."

"So as chunin..." Sasuke muttered just loud enough to be heard, seeming to muse at what such a promotion would avail him.

"As it happens, I've nominated team 7 for the Konoha exam starting next week. You'll need to fill these out and take them to the Academy by Friday in order to compete as a team. I also might have placed a bet on how well my team will do, so I certainly hope my entire team will make it to the finals. Think about it very carefully before you decide what to do. As a team. Goodbye, team." Kakashi passed out a few forms and unsubtly stressed the work team each time he spammed it before disappearing in a swirl of leaves.

"He just ditched us didn't he?" The pinkette didn't so much ask as state.

"He's not important." Sasuke confirmed. "The important thing is we need to get Naruto through those exams." The last Uchihha declared in what sounded heroic and self-sacrificing to those who didn't know him and therefore realize his true intention of getting his team through the exams so that he could compete in the finals himself, riding all their hard work towards his own greater glory. Yes, somewhere behind the thoughts of keeping Naruto's non-existent kekkei genkai secret was hidden the desire to show off how powerful the Uchiha were, even when limited to one person. Just a little deeper and to the left of the crippling fear of his brother.

"S,so Gaara." Temari flinched as her younger brother's dull eyes turned upon her. But she worked up the courage and persevered. "W,what was it exactly that made you decide to marry me off. I,if you d,don't mind me asking."

Gaara seemed to weight her with his eyes for a moment, appearing to muse over if it would be more convenient to simply squash her arms and legs so she couldn't flee than it would to explain himself. You didn't have to be fully functional and uncoerced to get married, after all. But for now mother was silent and contented and the sight and smell of blood might awaken her again. Best to try and use words, at least.

"Long ago mother fought a group of ninja like the blond... She fought them many times and probably killed many of them. When the blond is around, mother is happy and nostalgic. ...And quiet..." The redhead struggled to explain through his inexperience with communication and clues within a tanuki's drunken rambles.

For the briefest instant as her youngest brother uttered the last word, Temari saw him. Not the terror inducing monster or the emotionally deadened body, but the friendless, lonely youth that had to struggle not to kill everything he saw. A child grasping at straws to stave off even another second against a super-natural horror she could only barely comprehend.

It was a sight she both pitied and admired, but after that brief glimpse, less than a single flicker, the emotionless husk that housed the Ichibi was back, staring at her with lifeless, dulled eyes. For a while she mused at just how far gone her family was.

She'd been too young to understand how a personality was forged, formed from their experiences and relationships. By the time she grasped that she had had an influence on the determination that held back Sunagakure's second worse nightmare, it was already too late to get close enough to make a difference.

The worst nightmare, puppets of dead jounin and kage mounted on exploding clay birds attacking en mass, was so far beyond her ability to change that the lost chance of helping against the Ichibi weighted at her every moment she wasn't utterly terrified of getting crushed to a pulp by the Ichibi.

What a cowardly young girl she was.

"I suppose he's as good as any other suitor." Temari allowed submissively, watching in fearful bemusement as Gaara took this as acceptance and nodded, slumping into a more relaxed posture as he closed his eyes to meditate.

Content with the perceived victory, the kunoichi assumed. A perceived victory that she'd inevitably turn into an actual victory once the shock of him being so calm and vulnerable for even a heartbeat faded away and the encroaching, creeping menace of the tanuki returned. Once the heavy, dry presence of it returned, choking her where she stood with killing intent so vastly beyond human capacities that she'd obey with only the slightest hesitation.

It was luck that the one instance she hadn't been guarded and subservient he was so comparatively passive.

The shock combined with the thought of him seizing her future in such a way had prompted her to react... badly before her mind caught up. And really, disregarding the vibrant safety orange suit and overgrown mass of hair that looked shiny and healthy enough to make her a little jealous, coming from a desert where her own hair became dried and brittle no matter what she...

Ahem, aside from those, tiny factors, it really was about the same as any suitor she could expect her father to come up with in the coming years. She wasn't actually just going along simply because she feared her brother enough to let him ruin her life, right? Besides, even though he looked a lot like an idiot, she might be perfectly happy married to him...

What a cowardly young woman she would become.

"Yo-yoi!" The blond genin exclaimed suddenly, grabbing both his teammates on their designated maiden grabbing areas. That is to say, their upper arms, instantly rendering Sakura helpless as she was a female, this was a shonen action setting and having a villain hold a woman hostage was pretty much inevitable, so if all their powers and strength didn't poof away when grabbed by the upper arm it'd really ruin the drama when she used one of her well established superpowers to one-shot the idiot before he could offer his ultimatum. Oh sure, they might claim they used genjutsu or drugs or some similar plot device but everyone knew the truth in the back of their minds.

...Now where were we?

"Yo-yoi!" The blond genin exclaimed suddenly, grabbing both his teammates by their upper arms. "It has suddenly just become clear to me. As ninja, are we not to sneak in unseen, concealed from the eyes of both friend and foe?"

Sasuke paused, gazing at the nearby structure sitting so innocently, possibly in thought but more likely struggling to contain his murderous, illogical rage before he killed his teammate for daring to touch him. If he wasn't an Uchiha it would probably be noted he contained the questionably existent killing intent very well, without displaying an ounce of it outwardly. After a moment the raven-haired youth inclined his head. "So you think the tests' already started and anyone who just walks in the front door will get disqualified?"

"Hmph." Naruto nodded once, a dutiful grimace on his face for dramatic impact, releasing his hold.

"Naruto!" Bam. Sakura's fist smoked as she claimed revenge for him accidentally reminding her how completely defenseless genre conventions left her so long as there was semi-persistent pressure on her bi and tricep simultaneously. It was bad enough subconsciously knowing that as a female fighter in a shonen action setting she was eye candy at best and a completely dead-weigh piece of emotional baggage that dragged all her allies down at worst.

Hell, she'd be better off in a shonen harem environment as a few to every single woman in those had some kind of awesome superpower that outstripped and intimidated the male lead.

As it was, suddenly being powerless, unable to break free or fight back, incapable of even shouting in distress because a hand from some unnoticed, unknown person had closed around her upper arm... While no one consciously noticed, not even Sakura herself as understanding the conventions that runs one's own life drives one mad from the revelation, it would still be there, in the back of her mind as a nightmare for years to come. And because it was Naruto this time and unconsciousness brought her closer together with her inner-self, her wet dreams too.

"He's right. We should treat this as an actual mission. Find out which window is room 308 and keep yours eyes open for any traps or observers." Sasuke ordered, having carefully considered how much of a show off this would make him.

"Eh? But we are to voyage to room…"

"Security will be lightest on the inside and on windows to unimportant rooms. Breaking in on the same floor means we also don't have to deal with multiple layers of defense or risk of reinforcements gathering to the target before we get there. In contrast, the front entrance and the windows directly on that side of the building will be the most heavily guarded." Sakura recited dutifully. "Tactically speaking, it's a waste of forces to protect every potential entry point, so only the most direct and obvious ones will have any serious guards aside from an alarm."

Sasuke almost managed to look both stoic and smug at the same time. After a moments reflection, or silent gloating since he was an Uchiha, he leapt into action.

Following the Uchiha's lead the three broke off and scrambled into the trees, approaching from a vector perpendicular to the official entrance and their destination.

"Intruders sir." A chunin subordinate warned suddenly, appearing beside his temporary commander.

Ibiki's eyebrow-less eyebrow rose skeptically as the eye below that same eyebrow-less eyebrow eyed the genin team stealthily disappear into one of the unused classrooms of the academy, clearly attempting to remain... unseen. Uneyed isn't a word, after all.

While he only got a glimpse, he recognized the flash of apocalypse pink anywhere. A Haruno, no other ninja would be so brazen, except for Uzumaki and his piratanical orange suit and that was a completely different sort of insult.

That meant they were from Konoha. But why would, ah! The Uchiha's teammate was a Haruno wasn't she? And they were suppose to be in the exams but hadn't actually been eyed… Ahem, seen yet. Perhaps they figured the first test was a stealth exercise?

That would make for an interesting test, wouldn't it? But for now the best thing to do with this was turn it into a test for the chunin they already had and see how it played out.

"Get two others and form a team to rebuff them. If they manage to reach the waiting room we won't be able to deal with them directly without it being an international incident. Non-lethal only, I want them brought to me immediately when caught."

"Yessir." The chunin complied obediently and without question, poofing away.

Sasuke frowned thoughtfully as his team turned the corner and prepared to enter the exam room. This was too easy, there hadn't been a single trap or observer of any kind once they got inside. If this was suppose to be an actual representation of a mission then shouldn't there be-

"Ah, I see you all decided to take the exams then. You see Sasuke, if either of your teammates had felt they weren't ready and backed down then you couldn't compete." Kakashi pandered from a window that had been closed less than a second ago, prompting Uchiha brooding behavior.

"Hn." The raven-haired genin hned in half-interested annoyance.

"And you two, I'm very proud to see you standing by your teammate in his time of need. Just remember, Sasuke needs to actually make chunin to avoid marrying Temari, so, see you once the exams are through." With a poof and some swirling leaves the jounin disappeared.

"Temari? Wait, he thinks the suna-nin's after Sasuke?" Sakura quickly pieced everything together.

"Hn." Sasuke hned in confirmation, turning the door-handle.

"Hold it right there!" A trio of chunin appeared at the far end of the hall.

The genin collectively blinked.

Naruto stepped forward, between the chunin and his team. "Yoyoi! You two must press on, I shall-"

Bam. "Baka. They can't do anything once we're in the room. It's the finish line." Sakura explained, punching the blond before hauling him into the room by the collar of his suit.

The door closed, the chunin froze halfway to the door. "Well… this is embarrassing…"

"Excuse me, you're blocking the hall." A girl in a pink china-dress with bunned hair said, brushing past them as they stepped aside. "That was some pretty good acting back there Lee. How many fell for it?"

"Slightly over half fell for the genjutsu, but the rest wished for the weak to accompany us as little as we do. Almost all believed us to be as weak as we appeared, though there were three individuals spread across two teams that viewed us with suspicion. We would be wise to be watchful of them." Her byakuganed teammate answered stoically, completely ignoring the chunin.

"Yosh! You need only point them…" The green-clad one's voice faded as the team entered the same door the other genin had.

"…So, who's telling Ibiki about this?" One of the chunin asked aloud, bringing what they were all fearfully thinking of into unfortunately sharp focus.

"Hey, Sasuke!" A loud, white-coated, puppy-hooded shinobi shouted as he approached the door with one of his teammates, the other one nowhere to be seen. "Looks like all the rookies are in this year, since you guys finally showed up. Are we awesome or what?"

"Sasuke-kun! I knew you'd be here sooner or later. Those idiots you had to team with didn't slow you down did they?" Ino flounced up and pandered, latching onto Sasuke.

"Back off Ino-pig, he's my teammate!" Sakura responded as one might have predicted, imitating her rival with the Uchiha's opposite arm.

"Hn." Sasuke let his displeasure be known in a way that neither of the girls understood.

"Yoyoi! Truly we are as awesome as any ninja shall ever be. Eh? Weren't we suppose to be three man teams?" Naruto replied to Kiba, suddenly noticing the fact that Hinata wasn't there.

"I... I'm h,here..." A soft feminine voice informed him as a timid, blushing Hyuuga kunoichi materialized between and behind her teammates. All who noticed simply assumed they'd overlooked her and there were very few who noticed her sudden appearance in the first place.

"Yoi, it is nice to see you once more, Hinata." The questionably sane genin greeting loudly, making both Hinata and Sakura flinch, one from shock and love-stricken fantasy, the other from embarrassment and a shrieking inner-voice.

Surprisingly both stemmed from the same fact.

'He remembered my name. ~Swoon.'

'He remembered her name! Fuck, let go of Sasuke and grab Naruto right now or so help me!'

To most remembering a name is an insignificant thing, but for Hinata Hyuuga, who spent most of her time hiding under an impervious, high-powered stealth illusion based off the henge... Well, let's just say that she was rarely seen and much more easily referred to as Hyuuga-san due to her eyes and leave it at that.

"You rookies should really keep it down. Tensions a bit high at these exams and nobody likes a loud ninja." A gray-haired shinobi said as he approached the group, immediately and permanently earning Kiba's, Naruto's, Ino's, Hinata's and Inner-Sakura's ire for the rest of his life, three because they thought the insult was towards them, two because they knew the insult was for their love interest.

"Who are you?" Sasuke demanded lightly, muscle tensing slightly just in case. Naruto insisting they break in had driven him to think of this like a real mission and the chunin appearing to stop them only cemented that. And in a real mission if someone walks up while obviously pretending to be friendly they were automatically a threat.

Even an arrogant Uchiha, believing everyone loved them on sight knew that. After all, upon first seeing an Uchiha anyone without ninja training would be overwhelmed by their presence and unable to approach. Not saying Sasuke was that kind of Uchiha, just heavily implying it.

"Oh just another hopeful genin. Actually I've taken this exam seven times already." The gray-haired shinobi responded, raising untold red-flags.

Seven times meant taking the exam since at least three and a half years ago. In turn that meant six of those times were probably in other villages and when the exam was in other villages those competing, except the home village, only sent their absolute best. Ninjas capable enough to be selected didn't have luck bad enough to lose by chance that many times, that much bad luck killed in the field.

So either he was lying or he had intentionally failed each of those times. Both implied a hidden agenda and if there was anything Sasuke had experience with as a ninja and a person it was bastards with an agenda trying to dictate his life. He hated that more than fangirls.

"Whoa, you must suck." Kiba laughed at the intruder's alleged ill-fortune.

When he brushed it off Sasuke confirmed this guy was up to something.

"Anyway, since I've taken the exam so many times, I ended up making some nin info-cards on most of the major competitors. Will you be quiet if I let you see some?"

"Troublesome. How are we suppose to know who to ask about? Some of the strongest ninja only work by hiding themselves..." A lazy pineapple-headed shinobi threw in from where he sat against the wall, watching his blonde teammate try to molest the Uchiha.

"W,well..." Sakura started, trailing off as all eyes went to her. "I mean, um. I'd like to see the ones on Temari and, uh... Gaara if you have them."

"Hear that? Looks like your fiance's girlfriend is getting a little jealous." A sorry excuse of a ninja in a cat-eared hood teased his elder sister.

"...Temari of the Sands. Eldest child and only daughter of the current Kazekage..."

"Shut up idiot." Temari hissed back angrily. Just because she had to didn't mean she'd like it. Regardless she watched closely as the pink-haired girl gaped like a fish.

"...Twenty-two D-Rank, nine C-Rank, two B-Rank and one A-Rank..."

"I wonder what the girl sees in him. He looks like a total moron." Kankuro continued, ignoring her.

"...Apparently a mid to long range ninjutsu specialist that uses primarily fuuton through her fans..."

"Hey, wouldn't it be great if she threw a tantrum over this. I mean, when the Hokage officiates or something?"

"...She was also held back from missions above B-Rank until put on the same team as her brothers..."

"If she objects, you'll replace him." A raspy, low voice informed him seriously, making him break into a cold sweat.

"...Gaara of the Sands. Youngest child of the current Kazekage..."

"I don't think she'd appreciate that Gaara." Temari shot back.

"...Skills are a blank, but eight C-Rank, two B-Rank and one A-Rank. No Ds..."

"She'll accept. Or..." Gaara's eyes dulled and his pupils shifted slightly.

"...Through the A-Rank without a scratch..."

"...As one would expect from a logia..." The blond in orange declared decisively.

Gaara settled back down, his eyes restored to their usual uninterested gaze. Both his siblings sighed at another crisis averted.

Sasuke smirked suddenly. "What do you have on Naruto Uzumaki?"

"Let's see." Kabuto flipped a few cards around, laying one flat at random. "Naruto Uzumaki. Orphan of unknown lineage. Huh, skills are also a blank except for a notation with a bunch of jutsu I've never heard of before. Sexy jutsu and... Ahem, Sixteen D-Rank, and o...ne. One A-Ranked..."

"Dude, don't you know about your own teammate?" Kiba snickered at him.

Sasuke, like a typical stuck-up Uchiha, ignored him in favor of proving his point. "And just how many of the teams in here did you give information to before we arrived?"

"What? Why would I-"

"But you'll just randomly offer it to us? No you're trying to earn something here, either trust, our good will or some kind of mutual assistance. And if you're offering it to us, the rookies, then you've already either supplied everyone else or been rejected at every turn." Sasuke decried the other shinobi, a skinny girl hanging from him on both sides making the dramatic gestures he'd planned impossible. Naruto was rubbing off on him.

"I... Well..." Kabuto was at a loss. If he denied it he'd never befriend Sasuke. If he accepted it and agreed he'd probably fail as well... "How about some information on the villages that sent their genin this year?"

Sasuke glanced to Naruto, realized the gesture was wasted and instead turned to Sakura, soon realizing that was a waste as well. He'd wanted to convey that in a subtle way Kabuto was revealing he was on Konoha's side regardless, leaving the other villages to suffer. Grunting he finally faced Shikamaru and got the minute understanding signal he'd been looking for. Sasuke nodded.

"Well, to begin with, you might have noticed the two new, tiny villages that are here for the first time this year, Otogakure and Shimagakure. Neither has much of a presence since they only started recently and lack strength for the time being, but..."

Sasuke's eyes flickered to Naruto's and this time the signal was received and acknowledged.

Sasuke leapt in as a trio of attackers descended, kicking the broom-head with a sweeping heel to the back of his head.

"Soru, shigan!" Naruto suddenly appeared in front of the hay-stack, shoving one finger through the sound-genin's metal gauntlet and into his wrist, stopping his arm-swing dead in its tracks.

The third, a long-haired kunoichi, spilled onto her shapely rump as she took a reclined position mid-charge for half a second.

"Troublesome." Shikamaru muttered.

"Alright, settle down you brats!" A huge, scarred man shouted as he appeared in a poof of ninja smoke. "Any more fighting until we tell you to and you automatically fail!"

"Yo-yo-yo." Naruto laughed nervously, trying to get his finger free of the shattered metal and flesh it was embedded in. After a moment he forced it down and put one foot on the gauntlet while pulling away from it.

"Stop! Fuck! That hurts!" Dosu cried piteously.

"Now all of you draw lots to find out where you're sitting." The interrogator demanded, just before Dosu collapsed, finally getting his wrist freed, except for the jagged bits of metal that were once protecting it. "Except you! Disqualified, now get to the hospital to have that looked at."

The sound genin remained frozen long after the rest had filed out, each one considering, and worse, knowing what Orochimaru would do to them for this failure.

Sakura stared at her test. It was a written test, the rules were clearly explained and heavily implied cheating was not just allowed, but intended. It was her strength, her one excellent ability, her specialty. But she couldn't focus on the damn thing to save her life right now!

For she knew her team was going to fail. Naruto couldn't possibly answer this level of questions; he was barely able to finish the basic academic course at the Academy. Nothing she did mattered! And hoping he'd caught onto to the fact they were suppose to cheat was beyond unlikely.

'So cheat for him, duh.' Inner-Sakura groused, though Outer-Sakura tuned her out without even listening at this point.

What could she do? While she personally could finish this thing without cheating once, well…

'I can't believe you're going to make me say this.' Her inner-aspect added after another moment of motionlessly staring at the page before her.

Hell, he only needed to get one right. It didn't even matter how, Sasuke could easily complete this in one go, he might not even need to cheat as rookie of the year required superb academic skills along with their ninja ones. She could get nine of nine without any real effort, but as long as Naruto scored zero they'd never pass.

'What will Sasuke think when you let our team drop out because you weren't willing to act like a real kunoichi?' Inner-Sakura asked sweetly.

For a moment Sakura started to let it get filtered out when certain keywords added up.

'What did you say!' She demanded harshly internally, one eyebrow twitching in agitation.

'You heard me. We're kunoichi aren't we? Kunoichi don't accept other people's rules, we cheat even when cheating isn't suppose to be possible. It's what ninja do. So why aren't you?' Inner-Sakura roared silently at her external counterpart.

'But, but… Sasuke wouldn't like a girl like that…' Outer-Sakura defended herself, fidgeting.

'Oh come on. They put it in the freaking rules, it's not even cheating when they expect and allow it! Geez, lazy, anorexic and oblivious… Why are you the one in charge.'

'Shut up.' Sakura ordered, picking up her untouched test and carefully reading each question.

…Got it.

Now, how to get it to Naruto without being noticed…

'Cheat!'

'I'm trying. Give me a moment.'

'Look, they accounted for subtle things. If we just give him our answers that's two points off, but we'll still pass. We don't have any techniques for this kind of thing anyway.'

'…Yes we do!'

'We do?'

'A basic bunshin is just an illusion, so is a basic henge. You can easily stack them on top of each other for a complete answer sheet and then kawarimi the clone onto his lap, or desk or something. Since there's no mass we can put it anywhere we want as it doesn't have to displace anything so distance isn't a factor.'

'Hmm… Let's go with lap. And put off the henge part until after making sure it arrives correctly.'

'Pervert.'

'Oh? I am you, you know?'

'Kami I hope not.'

A few handsigns later the formerly meditation attempting Naruto discovered Sakura's answer sheet had somehow ended up beside his own. He was about to turn around to tell her when he noticed the little note scribbled on it.

'We're suppose to cheat, baka.'

Eyes widened at this revelation, the blond began copying, snickering all the while.

A few minutes later the tenth question was revealed, decried and argued about until one of the windows exploded, a large black ball bursting through it.

#Author's Notes#

Man for a while there "Hill Of Swords" was being updated every other day and a lot of my computer time when to seeing if it was updated then reading the new chapter once or twice then reading anything else that got updated. Yep, that and staring at a pixelated hourglass waiting for the damn thing to load up enough to do something again.

I always found it kind of odd that in most main stream shonen action series the female characters, while looking extremely cool/sexy, are nearly never able to stand against the same level of opponent as their male counterparts.

The worst part of this is that less serious harem and fan-service oriented series will almost always have female characters that could almost completely blow their male interest out of the water, at least at the beginning of the series, and yet are intended more as eye candy then as combatants.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, why can't we have more series like Kurohime?

Yeah, written exam just wouldn't work out with this Naruto. But then I realized! Sakura could be the hero (sorta), because nothing says you can't cheat for the benefit of an incapable teammate. In the Naruto world there are more than a few ninja that can't do recon well if at all, they're more 'point and unleash' weapons of mass destruction, hence an info specialist would supply knowledge to them and with this in mind it's a valid tactic for the exam.

Shikamaru did for Chouji in canon anyways.

It's strange that people redeem Sakura by making her develop improvable combat skills for a start. Sakura can't fight, so her first moment should here, actually making her brains an asset to her entire team the single time they might have actually been useful in the series instead of providing us, the forth-wall viewers with exposition all the time.

Also, tried to upload this earlier but the sign-in link always went to 'unexpected error occurred while processing your request'. Oh, and the on-site spell-checker claims ne isn't a word even when it's part of a larger word like anyo_ne_ or ni_ne_, ect.


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